such names to conjure hemmingway prosciutto salad in harry ' s bar pound bringing himself to account ruskin in his obsessive zeal morris his conservation feel and henry james contriving kate croy ' s plot
we came to imbibe something of the faded magic of the place
we replayed with emphasis on play lines from the merchant in the ghetto and in the doge ' s palace othello on location so to speak literally we walked the talk shakespeare imagined
remember at the guggenheim how you cried standing in front of kandinsky ' s painting landscape with red spots
and how we laughed with marini ' s angel of the city his naked strength and his arms outstretched
remember too the sepia photograph of my grandmother as young woman posing with her sister more than a hundred years ago in front of the basilica